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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23998870">We fix what we can</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sallieri/pseuds/a_sallieri'>a_sallieri</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Eliot doesn't, Eliot is both safe and sane, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inner Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Quentin thinks he's broken, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:41:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23998870</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sallieri/pseuds/a_sallieri</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sorry, Q. You know, I think you are the first person who told me that I’m too good. And I know you are not right in the head, little nerd. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. It’s fine. Let’s go?”</p><p>How do you deal with the pain?<br/>What do you do if you can't be fixed? </p><p>A slow romance about two magicians who found each other.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey! Thank you for opening this.<br/>Before you read, make sure you read all tags and you are okay to proceed.<br/>Take care of yourself.<br/>Love you all.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Quentin was 14, he stopped eating, going to school, and leaving his room. He ended up in a mental ward. It didn’t make things better. The walls were grey. The meds made him nauseous. They didn’t work. He would sit and stare at the wall. He’d count the cracks. He wished to slip into them and disappear. Then he didn’t have the energy to think. They fed him through a tube. He hated it. He didn’t complain. He didn’t care. </p><p>Pills in the morning.<br/>
Breakfast.<br/>
Music hour.<br/>
Sharing group.<br/>
Walk in the garden.<br/>
Lunch.<br/>
Sleeping time.<br/>
Sharing group.<br/>
Free time.<br/>
Dinner.<br/>
Lights off.<br/>
Pills in the morning.<br/>
The days became a giant roundabout. And he couldn’t leave. </p><p>Micky got placed in the same room as Quentin. He was a manic, angry boy. Micky sneaked out to smoke menthol cigarettes. Micky threw his meds away. Micky made people cry in the sharing group. Micky tried talking to Quentin, tried insulting him, tried starting a fight. Nothing of that bothered Quentin. Micky left him alone. </p><p>Visitation weekends were the worst. No one could get out of them. Quentin would go and sit in front of his mom. She would cry. She would make him promise to get better. His father didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to look at his son. A failure.<br/>
Micky’s mom brought his sisters, little girls, funny and naive. She gave Micky cookies. They smelled of home and love. One day she didn’t come. Micky waited for her and refused to leave. The nurses made him go back to the room. He hid in the bathroom. Quentin knocked, then knocked again, then opened the door. Micky was sitting in the bathtub, in wet clothes, shuddering, and laughing, cigarette in his hand.<br/>
The smoke makes Quentin cough and rub his eyes. Micky laughs louder and in one smooth move smashes the cigarette into Quentin’s hip. It’s painful. Sharp. Blindingly sharp. Quentin gasps, trying to catch a breath, trying not to scream. He feels tears running down his face. He never sees Micky again.</p><p>Pain makes Quentin feel alive. Pain makes him feel normal. They let him out. They think that he’s got better because of the books and meds and therapy. He doesn’t argue. </p><p>He meets Jake in highschool. Jake teaches him to drink. When drinking stops helping, Jake teaches him to cut himself so people don’t notice and to fuck. Fucking brains out is not a metaphor. It’s what they do. It’s always painful. Jake bites his lips and leaves marks on his body that take a while to heal. Quentin doesn’t want them to. </p><p>It’s not that he likes pain. But it feels so right. Somehow it makes him feel at peace. Somehow people treating him like a thing, like he is worthless, not even a thing, makes sense. </p><p>At the university, Quentin sneaks out on weekends. He tells Jules that he is going to study or visit his parents, or whatever. In the darkness of the clubs, surrounded by smoke, in the midst of deafening music, he leans to the walls and always finds a guy eager to use him, hurt him, beat him, cut him, strangle him. He never uses the safe words. You only need those if you don’t want something horrible to happen to you. Quentin doesn’t care. </p><p>He stops after a guy breaks his arm. Cast attracts attention. Quentin hates attention. He meditates. He goes to a therapist. He learns more about his deviation. The days are bleak. </p><p>He gets into Brakebills. There is no more therapist. Meditation doesn’t help. Alcohol doesn’t take the edge of. He is drowning in his uselessness. The excruciating feeling that he is nothing. That he doesn’t feel anything. The plain old cutting doesn’t cut it. </p><p>People around him are suffocating. With their feelings and ambition and god knows what. He just wants to be left alone. Eliot doesn’t leave him alone. Eliot is nice. Eliot is gay. Eliot gets to Quentin even in the dreams. There is too much Eliot in his life. </p><p>Quentin doesn’t know when it happens, but he doesn’t mind Eliot anymore. He doesn’t mind Eliot talking to him, grabbing his hands, bringing him coffee. He doesn’t mind spending most of his time with Eliot.</p><p>Eliot asks him out. He looks nervous. Quentin just nods. Why not?</p><p>They go out to New York, Eliot guides Quentin through the narrow streets to a tiny Italian restaurant in Soho. It has little round tables, dim light, checkered tablecloth, and gentle music. Quentin feels uncomfortable. All of this is special for Eliot, he is trying so hard. Quentin has never even been on a date-date before.</p><p>He feels out of place. This restaurant, little smiles, that’s not for him. He’s not a guy to be taken out. He plays the part. He acts as he should.<br/>
After dinner, they grab a coffee and walk around, ending up at Riverside park, watching the sunset. </p><p>Quentin feels tired. So tired. He rubs his shoulders. He knows he can’t wait longer. He owes it to Eliot.<br/>
“El?”<br/>
Eliot turns to him, slowly and lazily.<br/>
“Mmmm?”<br/>
“I can’t, El.” - Quentin shakes his head, sharply breathing in. “We can’t. All this. I can’t. I’m not. See?” He pauses and throws his hands up. Eliot tilts his head, asking gently and mockingly:<br/>
“You are not… gay? You can’t…?”<br/>
“Obviously, I am. Well, bi. Doesn’t matter. No. I can’t do this. With you. You are too good, you know? And I’m not right in the head. So. Yeah.”<br/>
Eliot laughs. He looks at Quentin's confused face and tries to say something, but he just laughs instead.<br/>
“Sorry, Q. You know, I think you are the first person who told me that I’m too good. And I know you are not right in the head, little nerd. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. It’s fine. Let’s go?”</p><p>***</p><p>They get to the cottage and go to Eliot’s room, hiding from a party going downstairs. It’s nice. Not at all what Quentin expected. It’s light, and clean, with books everywhere and random notes.<br/>
“You can sit on the bed, Q”.<br/>
Eliot opened a closet, digging out a bottle of whiskey. He fills a glass and shoves it to Quentin, then lazily lays on the other side of the bed.<br/>
“Tell me, Q”<br/>
“What?”<br/>
“Anything.”<br/>
Quentin drinks the whiskey in small sips. The whiskey hurts his throat and nips his nose, but drinking means that he doesn’t need to say anything. Eliot looks at him, leaning on the headboard.<br/>
Quentin starts talking. The words are sharp and sudden and scratch deep inside. At first, they don’t go together, they are shallow. There is little of his parents yelling about divorce, little of the mental clinics and hospitals, their dread and medication smell,  little of his depression, and despair. It gets easier and Quentin tells Eliot everything. He tells Eliot how he didn’t want to be gay at 11 and jerked himself off to the playboy pictures to make himself Normal and how he couldn’t, and how he hated that he couldn’t. He tells him about loneliness and how he never was good enough for his parents or for anyone, really. He tells Eliot about Micky and pain and the knife with a blue handle he cuts himself with and about the vortex of meaningless sex mixed with pain and shame that he needs to feel, not better, but something. He tells Eliot that he is just broken and can’t be fixed and how the meds don’t work.<br/>
Eliot just listens. And when Quentin is done, breathing heavily, Eliot pulls him closer and cradles him till the morning comes. “My poor little nerd.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's a happy chapter, so I hope you enjoy it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quentin wakes up and feels good. He hasn’t felt this good in a long time. Ever?  Then he remembers the last night and groans. Someone sits down on the bed and carefully touches his shoulder. <br/>“How are you feeling, Q?”<br/>Quentin smiles and pulls the blanket closer. <br/>“Dying of embarrassment here. All good. Good talk.”<br/>Eliot chuckles. “I brought coffee.”<br/>Quentin blinks and takes the blanket of his head. <br/>“Coffee does sound good.”<br/>They sit and drink Starbucks coffee in bed and eat the chocolate croissants and it’s freakishly nice. In the deep of his heart, Quentin feels nervous. What did yesterday mean? Did it? Will they just pretend that it never happened? He’s fidgeting, tapping his fingers in an erratic rhythm. Eliot catches his hand.<br/>“You are okay, Q. You are not a freak. And the things that you told me yesterday - I’m not scared of them, you know. Everyone here has a dark little secret or two. And pain, it’s not bad or anything. You are afraid of it, and that’s perfectly human, but magic doesn’t come from happiness, baby. Pain is what makes us powerful. And if you want to give it a try, I’ll show you. I could give you what you need, Q.”<br/>Quentin shivers, his hands are shaking.  He wants it, desperately, so much, but he can’t. He’s broken and he’ll end up hurting Eliot and he can’t give Eliot anything and doesn’t Eliot get this? And...<br/>Eliot shushes him. <br/>“Q, listen to me, baby. We are all fucked up in our own way. And not everything can be fixed. And I don’t care. I like you. I like sex. I like control. I like pain. All of that, but only when it makes both of us feel good. It’s not a sacrifice. And it’s not supposed to be scary or horrible, baby. You need to feel good and safe.”<br/>Quentin shakes his head. <br/>“I… I don’t know if I felt this way. It’s more like vaccinations… you don’t enjoy them, but…”<br/>Eliot nods, smiling at Quentin, waiting for him to continue. <br/>“Is sex?.. Can it be… not horrible?” <br/>Eliot feels his heartbreak a little and he stops himself from sighing. He is silent for a moment, not sure that he can say anything that won’t sound like pity. Instead, he smiles at his boy.<br/>“It can be not horrible, darling. You know, some people find it rather pleasurable. And well, some don’t. Some people just don’t get a kick from sex - and there is nothing wrong with that either, you know? And if you decide to try and you find out that sex is not something you enjoy - there are so many ways of building relationships without it. But yes. It doesn’t need to be bad, baby.” <br/>Quentin is tense, clutching the blanket in his fists, listening intently, ready to flight. Eliot manages to say all of this reassuringly and with a straight face, and salutes himself for doing so. Being vulnerable and asking him took guts and he wants Quentin to know that he can trust him. Eliot casts a little spell, making a glass of ice tea appear from downstairs and hands it to Quentin. It’s hot outside. <br/>Holding the glass out as a shield, Quentin turns to Eliot. <br/>“I… I’d like to try, El. The whole thing. With you. If… if you… would you want to?”<br/>Eliot looks at Quentin thinking how ridiculous this boy is with his stammering and blushing, with messy hair, and biting his lip, and looking at Eliot like Eliot’s some kind of gift. So anxious. So ready to be turned down. So trustful. Oh God, why. <br/>Eliot breathes in: <br/>“Yes, Q. Very much so.” And cast Quentin a look. Apparently, even his little nerd, as clueless as he might be, gets it. <br/>“Oh.” Quentin gasps softly. “Really?”<br/>“Mhm.” Eliot can’t help himself, so he leans in and gently tucks Quentin’s hair behind his ear. “We’ll take it slow, baby, okay?” <br/>“Okay.” Quentin doesn’t seem to be able to say much more, squirming under Eliot’s gaze. <br/>“Good boy” Eliot kisses him on his forehead.<br/>This will be fun.</p><p>***</p><p>Quentin, despite his past, is completely inexperienced. He blushes every time Eliot sits near him in the library or when Eliot wraps his hand around his shoulders. He tries refusing Eliot’s jacket when he feels cold. He panics when Eliot introduces him as his boyfriend. <br/>And at the parties, Quentin unconsciously moves closely to Eliot, not leaving his side. <br/>Eliot is completely smitten by all of this. On his part, he makes sure that Quentin knows that Eliot’s there for him, that Quentin knows that he is not just a toy or a thing. That he is a person, and Eliot’s happy to be with him. <br/>They take things slow. Eliot makes sure that they take it slow. <br/>At the same time, Eliot thinks that he didn’t think about sex this much even as a teenager. <br/>But it is worth it. It is all new for Quentin.<br/>He never got to hold hands with someone before. <br/>He never was picked up after class. All these little highschool-ish moments never happened for him. Eliot wants them to happen because Quentin deserves all of them and more. So day by day, he is making the memories for his little nerd. <br/>Quentin, well, Quentin feels happy for the first time in his life and wishes that they wouldn't take things this slow. <br/>They are sitting by the lake after their late afternoon classes. It’s sunny and smells of freshly mowed grass and lilacs and a bit of cigarettes that Eliot’s smoking. He catches the glances that Quentin throws at him, and wonders what his boy is up to. <br/>“Something’s on your mind, baby?”<br/>Quentin’s pupils go wide as if he’s been caught doing something that he shouldn’t be doing. He gulps and looks at Eliot. <br/>“Nno, nothing really. I don’t..” Quentin winces ever so slightly, but Eliot sees that and tries not to smile. <br/>“Come on, kid. Tell me.” <br/>Quentin hugs himself, and closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. <br/>“couldwekiss” Quentin says rapidly in a little voice.<br/>“What, darling?”<br/>“Could we…” Another deep breath. “Mmm… you know… kiss?” <br/>Eliot can’t help himself. <br/>“Oh, baby.” He laughs, happy and loudly. “Yes, of course, we can”<br/>He pulls Quentin into a hug, peppering him with little kisses, then stops. He smiles at Quentin, looking for any signs of worry or discomfort and when he doesn’t find any, he cups his face, and leans in, softly kissing his lips. Quentin makes a little sound, soft and surprised, going still for a moment, and then, kissing him back. He is a bit self-conscious and so sweet, gentle, and unsure. Eliot wonders if he even has been properly kissed before, and kisses him, thinking how precious his boy is. <br/>They are out of breath, Eliot gently rubs Quentin’s shoulder. <br/>“Hey, El? Can we do it again?” <br/>Eliot smiles.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Leave a comment. Tell me what you think.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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